Since their graduation from the Royal College of Art in 1990, brothers Jake and Dinos Chapman have continually pushed the envelope with their iconoclastic, ambitious sculptures. Frequently incorporating what they call “bankrupt” imagery, so frequently used by contemporary that it has lost much of its original meaning, the artists create large-scale sculptural works that have frequently drawn fierce reactions from critics and gallery visitors.

Jake and Dinos Chapman, The End of Fun (2010), via State Hermitage Museum

In their newest work, The End of Fun at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, the Chapman Brothers have continued their extreme practice, showcasing an immense tabletop expanse of miniature figurines in horrific tableaus that have already drawn the consternation of Russian law.

Jake and Dinos Chapman, The End of Fun (2010), via White Cube Gallery

Depicting a series of events that blurs the line between the real and surreal, the Chapmans depict brutal war crimes, crucifixions, skeletal ranks of Nazi troops, several appearances of Ronald McDonald, and other bizarre imagery. In one scene, a group of childish Hitlers participate in painting a buxom nude model in the middle of a grisly war scene. In another, an embattled Ronald McDonald waves to viewers as he navigates shark-infested waters in a shoddy lifeboat.

Jake and Dinos Chapman, The End of Fun (2010), via White Cube Gallery

Examining the nature of horror and violence, The End of Fun becomes an inquisition into the human conception of hell, displaced from any specific mooring of time or place for a broader, figurative, and much more evocative realization. As with much of the work by the Chapmans, the questions posed only become more complex with prolonged observation.

Jake and Dinos Chapman, The End of Fun (2010), via White Cube Gallery

The End of Fun also features some of the Chapmans’ past work, including Traumatize, in Order to Offend, in order to Traumatize, and the Disasters of War, their first major work that recreated a number of wartime sketches by Francisco Goya.

Jake and Dinos Chapman, The End of Fun (2010), via White Cube Gallery

Jake and Dinos Chapman, Disasters of War III (2000), via State Hermitage Museum

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